News - April 2003
'Please, Mr President, I miss my Dad'
In Soviet times, Lentvaris thrived as the home of the only carpet factory in Lithuania, but demand has slumped in the last ten years and many of the small town's inhabitants are now unemployed. On a damp day last month, it was not looking its best - winter snow still lay on the fields and great pools of water spread across the roads.
Silas Kindergarten is the only one in town and three of its small classes are running Zippy's Friends. I joined a class of just six children taking part in a session on change and loss. The teacher read the story where Zippy (Tig's pet stick-insect) dies. The teacher explained that, because this was the second year of running the programme at Silas, the children had heard about Zippy's death from older children and so it hadn't come as a shock to them. Last year, she said, children had cried.
After listening to the story, the children drew pictures representing change, and then each child in turn got a chance to talk about his or her picture. The saddest one was drawn by a small boy and showed him arguing with his mother.
'She told me to leave home,' he said.
'How did you feel?' asked the teacher.
'I cried,' he said. 'I was sad.'
His classmates then suggested some good solutions - talking about the argument, saying sorry and making up with his mother.
Later, the teachers told us that children were calmer as a result of taking part in Zippy's Friends and had learned to listen and concentrate better. In turn, the teachers felt better able to listen to the children. They liked the fact that there was a lot of support for teachers and the programme wasn't just 'dumped' on them.
Parents had been supportive. Before the programme began, a meeting was held to explain its aims and objectives, and parents had subsequently reported that their children were talking more about feelings and changes.
We were told one remarkable story of a boy on the programme last year, whose father was serving a three year prison sentence. The boy desperately wanted his father to come to the closing session of Zippy's Friends, and so drew a picture of his family, with the message: 'I want us to be together.' His mother and teacher sent the picture and a letter to the President, saying how much the boy missed his dad. As a result, his father's sentence was reduced to 18 months! This was powerful testimony to the value of expressing one's feelings, and perhaps it was only through Zippy's Friends that the boy had gained the confidence to draw the picture and show how he felt.
Caroline Egar
Programme Manager
Zippy's Friends